[KS] Re: party pooper

[David Kosofsky]

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>Mike Goodwin wrote:

> In all of what Anders Karlsson had to say in his original "party pooper"
> posting the above is the only thing that actually resonates with me.

I must say that I found Anders Karlsson's posting very resonant indeed.
In
fact, when reading it I felt that he was taking the words right out
of...
out of whatever orifice I'd been on the verge of delivering them from
myself.  His reactions to DJ's Nobel are very much in line with my own,
right down to the disinclination to share them for fear of being a
party-pooper.  But following his example, I'll overcome the
disinclination
in order to pursue a couple of related points.

Like Anders, I have no intention of diminishing the personal honor that
has
been paid to DJ or of dismissing the very real sacrifices that he has
made.
A decade and a half or so has not dimmed my many memories of passing
DJ's
house on my way to my office at Sogang and seeing the black armored
vehicles
and the dozens of bus-loads of troops that Chun Doo-hwan, in his
never-subtle way, kept posted there around the clock.

But also like Anders, and for precisely the reasons he mentions, I have
trouble seeing  DJ's recent laurels as
a basis for a celebration, for a collective `letting off of esteem' in
the
ROK.  As he wrote, the prize marks the Korean peninsula as a trouble
spot on
a par with Northern Ireland or Israel/Palestine.  I would press the
point
even further by  recalling  that neither the Catholics and Protestants
in
Belfast nor the Jews and Arabs in Jerusalem make any claim or invest any
national-pride energies in being `one people' with `one heart' , etc.
etc.
They see themselves as peoples involved in conflicts stemming from their
differing religions and histories, and it is on that basis that they
might
take some pride if their leaders are given awards for their willingness
to
sit down and talk with each other.  But in `han-nara', where so much is
made
of sharing `han-maeum', the background is different. For one Kim to go
to
Pyongyang to talk to another Kim isn't  quite analogous to Anwar Sadat's
trip to Israel to address the Knesset.  Rather, it's perhaps analogous
to
the Sephardic Chief Rabbi agreeing to sit down with the Ashkenazic Chief
Rabbi.  Still, that's no mean feat, either, and .... well, enough
party-pooping.

On to those related points and Mike Goodwin's posting:

>I have had some difficulty fully appreciating how the prize can
> be
> awarded to individuals whose struggles, though admittedly life-long,
> have
> (up to and including the time the prize-winner's name is announced)
> borne
> limited if any "real" fruits at all.

I don't know about the difficulty of appreciating it, but this is
certainly
very much in the tradition of the prize. Several examples come to mind,
but
to take an American one, how about the 1919 winner of the Nobel Peace
Prize?
The main reason it was awarded to Woodrow Wilson was for his creation of
the
League of Nations.  What finer example of `limited if any "real" fruits
at
all'?  Even at the time (that is, even before the League had
demonstrated
its ineffectiveness), the 1919 prize was a painful irony since it was
just
before the prize was announced that the Senate rejected the terms and
the
USA failed to join the League. Wilson's struggle to win congressional
acceptance took the form of a national campaign that not only ended in
abject failure, but also destroyed his health and hastened his death.

My point here is not to glorify Woodrow Wilson (whose contribution to
Korean
history is hardly hagiography-fodder), but simply to suggest that as
long as
it's in pursuit of the right ideals, a noble failure is well within the
Nobel tradition.

.>But throughout, I have consistently wondered
> why
> the Nobel committee no longer exercises its right to keep the prize in
> abeyance (as it did in 1914, 1915, and 1916) until a "truly  worthy"
> candidate appears.

A good point, I think.  In fact the abeyance-option has been taken quite
a
few times. In addition to the 1914-1918 WWI period that Mr. Goodwin
mentions
(with a break in 1917 to honor the Red Cross), there was no Peace Prize
in
1923, 1924, 1928 or 1932.  And the WWII period followed the same pattern
as
WWI, with no prize between 1939 and 1943, and then another award to the
Red
Cross in 1944.  And in 1955 and '56, and again in '66 and '67, the
abeyance-option was exercised.

> That Roosevelt took the Nobel award for "peace" in 1906 strikes me as,
> at
> best, morally "shaky".

This resonates with me, I suppose, but again, moral shakiness is well
within
the Nobel tradtion.  Again, several examples come to mind, and again
confining myself to American winners, I'd say that if you're looking for
an
example of a morally shaky Nobel Peace laureate you could do no better
than
the 1973 winner.  When Henry Kissinger was announced as the winner, less
than one year had passed since the "Christmas Bombing of Hanoi", which
he
had urged on Nixon as the best means of  pressuring  North Vietnam to
come
to terms at the negotiating table. (Anders Karlsson's compatriot, Olaf
Palme
gave an impassioned speech saying that the American Christmas Bombing of
Hanoi would be remembered in history along with Guernica, Treblinka,
Ledice... I forget just which five or six Nazi atrocities he
mentioned...but
the result was that Nixon broke
off diplomatic relations with Sweden for a spell).  And Kissinger's
Nobel
was
announced no more than three years after the U.S. (again at Kissinger's
urging) began its bombing of Cambodia and widened the war into that
country,
a course of action that led, more or less directly, to literal
mega-deaths.
I'll spare you a recitation of what can only be painful memories to
those of
you of my generation or older and conclude my nomination of Henry
Kissinger
for the most unambiguous case of Nobel moral ambiguity.


> On the other hand, that the International Red Cross received the Nobel
> award
> in 1917 strikes me as bang on!

Perhaps so, but the same would hardly apply to the SECOND Peace Prize
awarded to the Red Cross in 1944.  Although it  wasn't until October of
1997
 that the Red Cross made an official and explicit apology for its
contribution to the Holocaust (which it characterized as a mistaken
attempt
to maintain the cooperation of the Nazis by refraining from publicizing
their atrocities), criticism of that organization's relationship with
the
Nazis, and fairly well documented accusations of more serious misdeeds
than
those mentioned in the 1997 apology had been going on for several
decades.

>Between these two extremes there is a lot
> of
> room for argument.

Yes, but my point would be that there will almost ALWAYS be some element
of
moral ambiguity, at least in terms of outcome, if not of motivation. 
Again,
several examples suggest themselves, and again I'll go with an American
one,
probably the least-known of American winners. The 1970 winner, Norman
Bourlag, is considered the founder of, at any rate the most important
figure
in the Green Revolution.  By developing superior strains of food-crops
better adapted to the conditions of starving regions, and by setting up
programs in those regions to make the crops available and teach the
required
agricultural techniques, he was responsible (and still is) for saving
hundreds of millions of people from starvation. Probably no man on earth
has
saved more lives.  And it was in exactly those terms that the Nobel
Committee lauded him in 1970. What could be less morally ambiguous?

Yet nowadays the stink is on Norman Bourlag and the Green Revolution. 
He/it
are blamed for making poor countries dependent on expensive chemicals
and
fertilizers, for encouraging overpopulation, for destroying
bio-diversity
and traditional societies, for all manner of crimes against humanity and
the
environnment. There are many people, especially in environmental groups,
to
whom Norman Bourlag's Nobel is as egregious as Henry Kissenger's is to
me.
And these people are better informed, more socially conscious, and far
more
influential than I.  So  for all his Nobel laurels, Norman Bourlag can
no
longer get funding for his projects from World Bank, ADB, or UN
organizations.

My point is that moral ambiguity is a fact life, and not just in Oslo. 
In
terms of moral consequences, the returns are NEVER in.  If (to return to
the
matter at hand, but in what I hope is a very hypothetical way) the Nobel
blessing works better for DJ than it has for other would-be peace-makers
(and let's not forget that  not so long after winning his Nobel, Anwar
Sadat
paid for his visits to the Knesset and to Camp David with his life), and
if
the two Koreas achieved not just peace, but unification, and if a
unified
Korea launched onto an aggressive course in relation to its immediate
Asian
neighbors ....  where would the 2000 Peace Prize be seen on the scale of
moral ambiguity?

> justification for giving KDJ the prize because, as we sometimes say, "it
> takes two to tango" (e.g., in 1993 when the award went to Mandela AND
> Mr. De
> Klerk).

Which reminds me that I should mention that Henry Kissenger shared his
prize
with Le Duc Tho (who declined the honor) and that Anwar Sadat shared his
with Menachem Begin (speaking of  moral ambiguity).

> Well, that's my two bits! I guess in the end I think it's kind of nice
> that
> the Korean people can collectively celebrate a Nobel Peace Prize.
> (Goodness
> knows Koreans have wanted to to do just that for a very long time.) So
> "congrats" to all Korean list members and to all those with fellow
> feelings!

I'll second that emotion.

David Kosofsky
Saba, Netherlands-Antilles